US mobile advertising to grow by 36%
Mobile advertising in the US will grow by 36%, rising from $169 million in 2008 to $229 million during the course of 2009, according to Magna’s new mobile advertising forecast.
Magna’s predictions are based on a number of factors, including the massive take-up of mobile phones, subscriptions and applications other than voice services and also the increased use of mobile internet services.
There are more than 224 million mobile users now in the US (according to Nielsen) – and out of those, 22 million users access the internet via their mobile phone handsets on a daily basis – 63 million monthly – according to recent data from ComScore.
As a result, Magna said that smart-phones are key to growth – “As carriers seek to drive revenues from data services, consumers will increasingly be incentivised to select smart-phones as their primary mobile devices”.
According to the report, Apple’s iPhone and the company’s App Store is another key driver for mobile advertising, due to heightened consumer interest in the iPhone product, as well as continued development of new apps for the hardware.
Magna’s forecast said mobile ad networks represent the largest sub-sector within mobile advertising and will produce the greatest growth in absolute terms over the next several years, while forecasting that SMS advertising will perform more strongly, with long-term growth rates similar to that of ad networks.
In April, Universal McCann’s new research showed that more than one-third of high-use smartphone users respond to mobile advertisements (see Over one-third of smartphone users respond to mobile advertisements).
The study polled 1,800 participants online who frequently surf the web with their mobile devices. Smartphone users are defined as those that download mobile content from the web at least once a day or close to it.
It found that smartphone users are clicking on ads (53%), requesting more information or a coupon (35%) and making purchases via their handsets (24%).
In another recent report, Juniper Research forecast that growth in user spend on mobile entertainment services will slow dramatically over the next two years unless key markets emerge from recession (see Growth in user spend on mobile entertainment to slow over next two years).
It said that under a worst case scenario of a prolonged global recession, mobile entertainment revenues would increase by nearly $13 billion over the next five years, against a pre-downturn forecast of more than $26 billion.